


Under Your Skin

by FemaleOfTheSpecies



Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Burns, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Smut, F/M, Frank makes a friend, Frank tries to help, Gun Violence, Merc with a mouth, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Psychic Abilities, Wade Wilson makes an appearance, in a cabin, living in the woods, organised crime, playing cards with a psychic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-07-29 05:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7671289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FemaleOfTheSpecies/pseuds/FemaleOfTheSpecies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a gunman with a bounty and Frank Castle thinks he's there for him, but he's not... and then suddenly he's saving someone's life and making friends with a psychic on the run from her former-employers: SHIELD. Frank is hunting down an organised crime ring who are selling and murdering underage girls. Now he's got an accomplice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Time Frank Castle Met Sylvia Deane

Sylvia was running as though her life depended on it which, she reminded herself, it did. 

She wasn't sure where she was going  but she was heading for the cover of the trees. Her car was sitting in front of her cabin which wasn’t too far away. She figured that if she stayed hidden for long enough she'd could escape once things had calmed down. 

She wasn't unfit but as she ran her breath was catching in her chest and she realised it was because she was afraid. Sylvia didn't get scared often but this situation was ticking the boxes. He'd shot three bullets at her as she fled - each had missed, but the last one had only  _ just  _ missed. Sylvia had been running for a good five minutes or so when she couldn't hear anyone behind her. She paused to listen for any tell-tale signs of what might be going on and hat's when she heard the footfall of the man who was chasing after her. He’d kept up. 

Her eyes widened as the tall silhouette of a man came into view. She turned to run again but it was too late. The whistle of the bullet was audible as it ripped into her left shoulder and the force threw her forwards. Sylvia couldn’t contain the pained cry that escaped her mouth as she tumbled onto the ground. 

Loose pine needles lodged under her fingernails as she tried to push herself up on trembling arms. She climbed to her feet but the man was right behind her and he pushed her onto the floor, forcing her onto her back so that she was facing him. Even though it hurt to move, she kicked out on instinct as he levelled his gun at her face and her clumsy kick connected with his wrist and he sucked in a pained breath as something cracked. Sylvia reached out with her mind as she tried to shuffle out of his reach but her head was fuzzy and she couldn’t focus. He was levelling the gun at her again and she knew that it was too late this time.

But what followed seemed to happen in slow motion. The man raised his gun and pointed it at her face just as another man stepped into view behind him. Castle. Sylvia stared at him and her assailant turned to follow her gaze as though perhaps sensing the newcomer, just as a bullet tore through his head. 

His body crumpled on top of her and his blood splattered across her face. Bile rose in her throat as she tried to wriggle out from underneath him and the edge of her vision was throbbing but, despite this, she tried to climb to her feet to get away. Sure, Castle had shot the gunman but that didn’t mean she was safe yet. However, Sylvia failed to regain her balance and instead stumbled backwards. She felt someone catching hold of her under her arms just before she passed out.

* * *

Frank felt alarmed.

He’d thought someone had been tracking him for a few days and he guessed it was a matter of time before he'd know for sure. He was right, of course. When he’d climbed out of his car that afternoon it was clear that someone had been checking the cabin out and there were tracks which led down towards the lake. There was one cabin closer to the lake which was about ten minutes away by foot, and other than that it was just frozen water and dense trees as far as the eye could see. He’d decided to head after whoever it was that had been tailing him to put this to an end while he had the chance and grabbed two handguns from the passenger seat before locking the car. 

The footprints left behind in the snow were easy to spot, leading Frank to suspect that whoever had been sent after him wasn’t the brightest guy. The tracks came to a stop near the cabin which looked out onto the lake. There was a car parked next to the building and Frank wondered if the guy tracking him was staying here, but then he heard a commotion from inside of the cabin and watched as the door opened and a woman ran outside and slammed the door haphazardly behind her. 

A man wearing a standard issue military jacket was hot on her heels and she didn’t even make it into the cover of the trees before he was on her, dragging her onto the floor and taking aim at her face. 

Frank wasted no time and fired a shot at the man but his aim was too far to the left. He wasn’t dressed properly for the weather and his hands were trembling slightly for the cold. His mistake cost him though and the other man pointed the gun at Frank before cocking it. He’d forgotten about the woman on the floor though, and she lunged forwards suddenly and grabbed hold of the hand he was holding the gun in, causing the bullet to whizz through the air above them. Then the woman was bolting into the cover of the trees and the gunman was chasing after her. 

It had taken Frank a moment to realise that the gunman wasn’t there for him before his body kicked in and he gave chase to the pair. Sure, he could have turned back as this was none of his business, but the guy had seen his face now and he wasn’t taking any risks. Besides, the woman needed help and she’d done nothing to warrant him not helping her.

She had fainted after he’d eliminated her attacker and Frank had just managed to catch her before she knocked her head on the frozen ground. Upon reaching his cabin with the woman draped in his arms he’d been forced to remove her shirt so that he could rip it into strips to use for bandaging the wound which was openly bleeding. She would pitch a fit, he was sure, but at least his intentions had been honorable. 

However, as he had gathered up and sorted through his medical supplies he'd heard a noise in the communal area of the cabin and discovered the door wide open. The woman had come around and had bolted. 

There was more snow forecast and if she didn’t find medical help she would likely die. Part of him felt as though that was her responsibility. Another part of him knew that she hadn’t done anything to deserve that and so he gave chase. It didn’t take long to catch up with her and Frank scooped her slight frame right up and threw her over his shoulder. She started to hit his back with her fists and he stopped on his way back to the cabin, sighing, 

"Look, the way I see it is that you've got no choice but to come with me on account of your gunshot wound." 

"Let me go!" she demanded in a hoarse voice, trying to wriggle free from his grip. Frank shifted the weight on his shoulder before carrying on.

"I know how this looks but I actually saved your ass back there in case you forgot. I removed your shirt to save you from bleedin' out. We’re going back to my cabin where I’ll tend to your wound. After that you can do what you want. I don’t care.” 

She stopped hitting him and satisfied, he lowered her on the ground. There were pine needles in her hair and some strands of it had come out of the band that meant to hold it back. The setting sun caught it and created a halo which framed her face. It would have been pretty if it wasn't for the blood glistening on her face, neck and chest. 

She didn't look at all well.

They stared at one another for a few seconds, each unsure of the other. She was catching her breath which billowed around her face in steamy white clouds. Frank just watched her in a steady silence with a dark look on his face. She started to shiver.


	2. Frank Castle Heats Things Up

It wasn’t long before the shock had worn off and the woman had no choice but to suffer the full results of a bullet ripping its way through her shoulder. Without morphine. Frank wasn’t jealous. He had to half carry, half drag her the rest of the way to the cabin.

“Please, please…” she was begging in a panicked voice, while tripping over her legs in an attempt to run. 

He knew that if she escaped his grip she wouldn’t have a destination in mind as she ran. He had seen people out of their minds with pain before. It was when they were most at risk not only from their injuries but also from themselves. She’d freeze to death before she found help from anybody else. 

The cabin he had chosen to break into was well away from the main road and a ten minute walk away from the lake. The interior was simple - a large table dominated the main communal area. There were two sofas in the corner which formed an L-shape with a television on the wall opposite them. Along the wall next to the front door sat a kitchen counter with a small fridge and a gas oven with an open top range. On the other side of the cabin were doors which led to a bedroom with a double bed, and a separate small bathroom. There were storage rooms built onto the back of the cabin. 

Frank sat the woman down on one of the sofas. He ignored her pained protests as he took hold of her upper arm and inspected the mess on her shoulder. The bullet had gone straight through but he’d been too optimistic that dressing the wound would suffice. He left her on the sofa and searched through the kitchen until he found the bottle of vodka he had been searching for.  

Frank turned to look at the woman as he opened the bottle. She was covering her shoulder with the hand of the other arm with blood trickling between her fingers.  Her knees were bobbing up and down as the pain coursed through her body and her face was slick from tears.  

Frank took a gulp from the bottle. Then, he took a knife from a pocket on a bag which he’d placed on the dining table earlier before turning his attention to the stove. He watched as the blue-orange flames came to life. They distracted him. He couldn’t help but think that this was all rather unsettling.  

Leaving the stove on, Frank picked the bottle of vodka up from the worktop and turned to face the room.

“Come here” he told her as he took a step forwards. 

The woman eyed him for a moment or two before she stood and warily made her way across the small room, meeting him at the table. She was a whole head shorter than him and eyeing the knife in his hands with a confused look on her face. Frank noticed how she couldn’t quite meet his eye. 

“Sit down,” he gestured at one of the dining chairs. She did as he asked, shooting him a questioning look as he handed her the bottle of vodka. 

“Drink this. You’re gonna need it,” he explained as he moved back to the stove and placed the knife in the flames. 

“What’re you doing?” she asked and he turned to face her, his eyes finding her own.

“Sterilising it.” He continued to stare at her as she raised the vodka bottle to her lips with a shaky hand. He snickered as she took a short sip. 

“Need more than that,” he prompted. She stared at him for a short moment before taking four large gulps. Lowering the bottle, she inhaled deeply and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. 

“Keep goin’,” he told her, turning to check the knife.

She didn’t make a sound and Frank twisted his head to find that she was still looking at him. Fresh tears were running down her cheeks and dripping onto her chest.

“I’m not asking you to drink it for me. You’ll regret it, not me,” he told her. His words seemed to persuade her and he watched as she took several more long pulls from the bottle. 

He was standing in front of her when she lowered the bottle this time. He registered the fear in her eyes as he took the bottle away from her and placed it on the dining table. Before she could question what was happening he gently took her good hand and entwined his fingers through hers and then used it to push her back into the chair. Then, without warning, he pushed the flat and red-hot surface of the knife against the wound on her other shoulder. 

She sucked air in through her teeth as the pain shot through her and then she yelled out. He felt her whole body shaking in pain as he cauterised the wound. She passed out at some point during the process, slumping forwards in the chair and forcing Frank to hold her up. Removing the knife after ten seconds he reapplied it again for another ten seconds and repeated this until satisfied. 

Infection was the biggest problem but that was easy to fight. Standing, he grabbed the almost empty bottle of vodka and poured it over her now charred skin. He stood and observed the woman slumped in the chair for a few moments. She looked so small and beaten. Blood was drying in streaks across her torso and her shoulder was a raw mess. There was blood dried in her blonde hair which was clinging to her damp face and her skin was an unhealthy pale white. He wondered why the gunman had been looking for her and why she might have been hiding in the cabin in the first place but he was sure that would all come to light soon.

After dressing her shoulder he carried her through the cabin and settled her onto the bed and opened a window slightly. He stood still as the cool air washed over his face and lowered the temperature of the room. He didn’t want this. He wanted to be alone and not burdened with someone else’s problems. 

It had started to snow outside, he noticed. How apt. 

xxxxxxxx

Sylvia would have given a leg to wake up to find she was on the base in her bed and not in a dingy cabin. Yet, that’s exactly what she discovered upon opening her eyes and there was no coming back from that. 

She had recognised the man from the previous evening the moment she met his eyes when she sat up in the bed. He was sitting on a chair across the room from her and it took a second or two for her to process what was going on. 

“Who are you?” he asked before she could even consider what she should do. 

“What?”

“Who are you?” he repeated, not moving. 

“My name is Sylvia.”

There was a silence. Sylvia didn’t like how heavy it was.

“Why d’you come here, Sylvia?” 

He wasn’t moving but his body language screamed of an alertness that men are trained to develop. She knew with one quick sweep of her mind that he’d kill her in seconds if she tried to leave.

“You’re going to think I’m fucking crazy…” she began, a deep panic settling in her stomach. 

“Try me.”

“Okay. Well, um… there’s a neighbouring cabin that my dad bought back before I was born. I inherited it. I haven’t been out here for a long time but I needed to get away from stuff. I work for… well…” Sylvia swallowed and the panic in her stomach rose up her spine and made her scalp tingle. She couldn’t tell him who she worked for. Why had she said that?

“This has no bearing on why I’m here, because me being here isn’t work related - but I work with SHIELD and-” 

Castle stood up and Sylvia hopped out the other side of the bed so that it sat between them and raised her hands up. 

“I’m not an agent. I wasn't sent here for you, I-”

“Then how do you know who I am?” Frank demanded, taking a few steps closer, reaching into his back pocket. 

“Because I’m a fucking psychic, okay?” she yelled, backing into the cabin wall.

He stopped short and Sylvia continued,

“I live in a fucking  _ warehouse  _ in the middle of nowhere and work with SHIELD to predict catastrophes and crises and that sort of thing and I fucked up and I came here but obviously it wasn’t enough and I was going to leave but it was too late and, and, so, that’s why I’m here.”

She spoke faster than usual but she was defenceless and cornered by an annoyed Frank Castle. You didn’t need to be psychic to know that was a huge disadvantage. 

“You’re… a psychic,” he repeated. 

“Yeah,” she replied, lowering her hands after realising she looked a bit stupid with them stuck up in the air. There was a quirk on his lips as though this was all amusing him. 

“You’re a psychic and you still got shot?” he was full on smirking now. 

“It doesn’t work like that. I have to concentrate and I wasn’t exactly concentrating yesterday, so… yeah.” 

“This is some grade A bullshit... ” Frank was shaking his head. Sylvia realised that if she didn’t convince him she wasn’t lying she was in trouble. 

“I can prove it to you,” she suggested, “have… do you have, like, a pack of cards or something?” 

\----

That’s how Frank Castle found himself sitting at the dining table with a deck of cards face down in front of him. Sylvia was sitting opposite him but facing away from him. She was hugging the back of the chair that she was straddling. Frank noticed a tattoo partly on show underneath the t-shirt he’d given her to wear and he wondered what it was. The t-shirt was too big for her and she looked like a child as it hung off of her shoulder.

“Are you ready?” she asked, twisting her head to the side to look at him.

“Don’t cheat!” he snapped and she turned her head back. 

“For the thousandth time, I’m not fucking cheating-” 

“-okay, here we go” Frank ignored her defence and picked up the card from the top of the deck and stared at it. 

“Queen of hearts,” Sylvia exclaimed. Frank slammed it face up on the table, eyeing her suspiciously but she wasn’t looking at him.

He picked up the next card and looked at it,

“Three of spades” 

It joined the Queen and he moved to the next card, 

“Seven of diamonds, four of clubs, king of spades, two of spades, ten of hearts, eight of diamonds, two of clubs, six of clubs, queen of spades…” 

Frank sighed and took in the increasing number of cards in the ‘correct’ pile. He didn’t know how she was doing it but she  _ had  _ to be cheating. He stood up and moved around the table until he was standing in front of her. She looked up at him from where she sat on the chair with a curious look on her face. 

“I’m not fuckin’ cheating,” she protested with an amused tone in her voice. He studied her face through squinted eyes. 

“Get up,” he instructed and she obliged, climbing off of her chair and standing next to it. She took a couple of steps backwards as he sat down. Frank scanned the room for a way that she could be observing the cards but there were no reflective surfaces. It was… troubling. 

“Why don’t you think of a card in your head and I’ll tell you what it is?” she suggested quietly from his left. He looked at her and noticed for the first time that her eyes were a striking pale blue. Ice-like, almost. 

“I can’t cheat if it’s in your head,” she pointed out and he felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth, 

“You’ll use visual clues,” 

“Like fuckin’  _ what _ ? I’ll close my eyes then,” she sighed and shut both eyes as she spoke. 

“Stand in front of me, in case you peek,”

Sylvia opened her eyes and sighed with frustration but Frank didn’t respond. He just watched as she moved to stand in front of him, facing away from him like before. She flinched when he rose from the chair and placed his hand over her eyes but she didn’t pull away. 

“Okay, Sylvia,” he spoke into her hair after a moment of silence, “what card am I thinking of?” 

“Ace of Diamonds, oh, now the three of hearts, six of hearts, the Ace again” she replied immediately. 

Frank dropped his hand and backed away, prompting Sylvia to turn around and face him. He kept backing away from her, scratching his head and frowning as he stared at her. 

“So, you’re a psychic?” 

“Correct.”

“And you work with SHIELD...” 

“Yes,” 

“Jesus fucking christ…” 


	3. Sylvia Deane: Destined For The Trunk?

“ _ I can’t believe what I’ve been seeing because you, of all people, promised that he was dead, Nick. I have to sort this out. It’s what I saw - I was putting an end to this, so I gotta go. I’m not going to do anything stupid or cause any problems so just leave me to it and don’t come lookin’ for me, yeah? Because you lied to me and-” _

Wade stopped the recording. Didn’t care much for the outpouring of feelings of betrayal which followed. He was sitting in a beat up Ford Capri that he’d found somewhere (couldn’t remember where,) and he was parked outside of the last store for at least a hundred miles or so. He’d bought a shit load of jerky and a dozen bottles of big red (why did they stock that?) and he was currently picking the chocolate out of the trail mix that the lady behind the counter had generously given to him to make him go away. 

He was close to the girl he was contracted to “bring in alive” but he had a bad feeling that he was going to get beaten up by The Punisher because he’d seen his bruised face at the store a couple of hours ago. Wade had stayed in the car and just watched as Castle went shopping and then fucked off. Was it a coincidence that Nick Fury had practically blackmailed him to come out here only for Castle to be out here in the middle of fuck knows where too? Possibly… maybe… probably not… 

It wasn’t a question of whether he could take Frank Castle in a fight because yes he could, yes he absolutely could… it was more a question of whether he could be bothered to, to which the answer was “meh”. 

Begrudgingly, Wade Wilson started the engine of the Capri, emptied the remainder of the trail mix out of the window and exited the car park, making his way towards the lake where Fury explained the girl had a secret cabin. 

If Fury was correct, this girl couldn’t detect him approaching which was the “only god damn reason I’m asking you to do this in the goddamned first place”. He wasn’t above just shoving her in the trunk and getting the fuck out of dodge, but his gut was telling him that it would all depend on whether Castle was around. This complicated things.


	4. A breach of International Security

“I was about six when my… abilities, if you will, started to develop. My mum had died the year before and they reckon the trauma was a trigger for it.” 

Sylvia paused as she chewed on a bite from the sandwich that Frank had made. It had some sort of dried meat in it and there was coffee on the table too. Frank just listened in silence as he ate his own food. It was comically domesticated. They sat at the table as though they were just a normal couple or something. 

“My dad was a petty crook. He made me figure out the security numbers for credit cards that he and his friend stole. They emptied the accounts and that’s how they made a living. But this bigger gang caught wind of what was going on and they killed my dad and kidnapped me.” 

Frank paused mid-chew, shocked, but Sylvia just shook her head when he looked up at her.

“It’s all history,” she said reassuringly. 

“But yeah, I had to work for this gang for a while until I was thirteen and then SHIELD busted me out of there. I’ve been living at the facility ever since, helping to prevent disasters and stuff.” 

“So what’s the deal with the gunman?” Frank asked as he poured more coffee into his mug. 

“It’s complicated,” she replied absentmindedly. 

“So indulge me.”

“I didn’t follow protocol.” 

“So SHIELD sent someone to kill you for not following protocol?” 

“No,” she was basically whispering now and Frank guessed that she felt ashamed. She  _ sounded  _ ashamed and it intrigued him. 

“Who did?” Frank pressed. Sylvia stopped chewing and returned his stare. As though perhaps judging that she could trust him, she swallowed the food so that she could speak.

“I’m supposed to report anything of urgency through my handler who is a SHIELD agent and then it gets fed back to the director who takes appropriate action as deemed necessary, like assembling the Avengers or sending out a team of agents. But about a month ago I had a vision and in it were the men who killed my father and kidnapped me, but that couldn’t be right because they were dead… only it was them, which means that SHIELD lied to me.” 

“It probably doesn’t seem like much because SHIELD is tangled up in lies and deceit and all, but for me this was different. So I ran away and decided to track down what I’d seen in my vision for myself. I don’t know what I was planning to do once I found them, but it happened sooner that I’d have liked and I completely messed it up, but I managed to get away and I came here and I guess they followed me.” 

“You ran away? What are you, twelve?” Frank mocked but Sylvia simply raised an eyebrow at him. 

“When I was 15 I went through a phase of running away and going into the city to mess around with other people my age. Apparently it was considered an issue of international security and ever since then Fury has always thought of me as a rebellious teenager.”

“A matter of international security?” Frank laughed and this caused Sylvia to smile. 

“Fury has never really let me forget that I was technically a criminal from the age of Six even though it was nearly three decades ago and I was coerced.”

“So how’d you end up working with the Avengers if he thinks so lowly of you?”

“I don’t work with the Avengers,” there was a bitterness in her words. 

“Is that hostility I detect?” Frank asked curiously.  

A tense silence descended between them. Sylvia contemplated her answer while slowly chewing the last bite of her sandwich. 

“You don’t toe the party line so you don’t get to hang with the cool kids, is that it?” Frank prompted. His food was forgotten on his plate. 

“I work with SHIELD and not for them, and the Avengers don’t even know I exist,” Sylvia explained. Frank raised an eyebrow skeptically. “And although I support some of their ideas there’s a part of me that thinks some people deserve what they get.”

“Oh, so you’re the type of gal who gets off on vengeance?” Frank mocked,

“I dunno,” Sylvia replied seriously, “I don’t like violence. Something about living as a psychic slave to a gang of thugs for six years turns you off of it. But would I rescue the guy who made me go through all that from harm? This guy who murdered people in cold blood - my own father included? Who tortured people, stole from them, raped people? No. I couldn’t.” 

“So you  _ don’t  _ toe the party line?” 

“I guess I don’t toe the party line,” she nodded.

“What would Stark have to say about that I wonder?” Frank asked with a smirk.

“Well, who gives a shit?” Sylvia remarked, smiling as she met his gaze. “Stark never had everything taken from him. His moral code is his own based on that privilege. Just as yours is yours and mine is mine based on our personal experiences.” 

“I’m a wanted criminal,” he reminded her and she just shrugged her bare shoulder in response. 

“I’m a breach of international security.” 

A silence followed as they both considered what was happening. It wasn’t uncomfortable though. 

“They’re going to come back, you know,” she pursed her lips as she considered what this could mean.

“I’m counting on it,” he said, leaning back in his chair,

“...and this doesn’t bother you?” Sylvia asked, raising an eyebrow at him, but Frank simply shook his head in response. 

“In the morning we’ll go get your stuff and you can come back here. I don’t think you’ll be safe up there on your own.” 

“I can look out for myself,” she argued and Frank grinned, 

“Oh yeah, it sure looked like it from where I was standing.” 

“Seriously, you’ve helped enough already and I’m really grateful, I just don’t see how it’s fair to burden yourself with this.” 

“The way I see it, it could be mutually beneficial, right?” Sylvia frowned at this and Frank leaned into the table slightly, “we’re both out here for similar reasons and maybe you and your abilities can help me out while you heal up, and if you watch my back I’ll watch your back.” 

“Did you run away, too?” Sylvia asked, smirking. Frank let lose a bark of laughter and leaned back in his chair again. 

“Somethin’ like that, yeah.” 

Sylvia reluctantly agreed on the grounds that she could get her stuff from her cabin which Frank agreed was a good idea. After that they drank bad coffee and played cards as neither of them wanted to sleep. Frank wasn't entirely sure she wasn't cheating but he won a few hands which he saw as a sign that she was being honest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um... so... I thought I'd finished this story but, truth be told, it didn't feel right. And I had some more ideas. So, this fic was originally completed, but now I'm expanding it. Some of the first three chapters are the same, but some of the story has changed - a certain Merc with a mouth has been introduced, for example. Go read!


	5. The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend

When the sun rose and chased the darkness from the cabin they both worked to tidy up from the previous evening. Sylvia didn’t have a coat so Frank let her wear his despite her protests that she would be okay.

“It’ll be easier if you go up onto the main road and then take the trail off to my cabin” Sylvia explained. As they drove only the sound of the snow beneath the tyres broke the silence.

It wasn’t long before they reached the cabin that Sylvia had inherited from her father. It was larger than the one Frank had taken shelter in. Frank turned the engine off. The pair sat in silence, staring out of the windshield at the cabin that sat ahead of them.

Sylvia took a deep breath and then climbed out of the car and Frank followed her as she made her way to the cabin. The building itself was unharmed but the interior was a mess - as Frank walked around upended and smashed furniture he guessed that Sylvia had put up a good fight. They entered the cabin into a sort-of den room with large arm chairs dotted around a widescreen television. There was a large pile of books on a coffee table in front of two of the chairs and the television set was playing old episodes of Tom and Jerry. Frank stood behind the armchairs directly opposite the television screen and watched as the cartoon cat tried to unsuccessfully catch the mouse by having his cat-friend literally lift the wall. The mouse was waiting with a hammer and smashed the paws of both of the cats. Frank chuckled as one of the cats got their toes caught under the wall and then he snapped out of it, glad that nobody had witnessed that. Sylvia reentered the room with a large backpack in her hands. It was mostly full and Frank guessed that she hadn’t unpacked and was living out of it. He watched as she pulled a coat out of the bag and placed some books inside. Then, carefully, she began to remove Frank’s coat so that she could replace it with her own. She winced slightly as the movement hurt her shoulder and once Frank’s coat was in her hand it was clear that she had knocked the wound in the process of taking it off. Blood was slowly seeping through the dressing.

“You got a first aid kit in this place?” Frank asked as Sylvia took in the mess on her shoulder.

“Yeah, in the kitchen back there” she replied, nodding her head to her left slightly as she prodded the bloody bandage with her forefinger. Frank took off in the direction she indicated. As he reached the threshold of the kitchen he heard Sylvia call out to him,

“Wait, don’t go in… there…”

He ignored her as he looked for the medical cabinet. It was sitting on top of the counter beneath a cupboard and Frank walked towards it. However, as he approached the counter his eyes landed on a sketchbook which lay open on top of the cabinet. There was a crude, hurried sketch of a man which looked quite familiar, but before Frank could pick the book up to look closer Sylvia practically threw herself across the room and slammed it shut before picking the book up and holding it against her chest with her arms crossed over it.

“...what was that?” Frank asked.

“I sometimes draw my visions” Sylvia explained, examining the floor as she spoke.

“And who was that?” Frank pressed.

“Doesn’t matter” she replied.

Frank was forced to watch on as Sylvia attempted to change her dressing without being able to use one of her arms to do so. In the end he’d promised not to look in the book if she just let him put the bandage in place.

“It’d be nice to leave today, is all.”

“Wow, was that sarcasm? It sounded like sarcasm.”

The short drive back to the cabin that he’d commandeered was silent and Frank couldn’t quite get the sketched image he had seen out of his mind. The picture had been scribbled in a hurry  and yet he couldn’t help but feel as though he knew that man.

“You know…” he broke the silence and as he did so Sylvia whipped her head around to look at him. She had been daydreaming and he’d interrupted.

“Huh?”

“That drawing of yours looked kinda familiar,”

There was a pregnant pause then and as Frank concentrated on the icy road he could feel Sylvia’s eyes raking over his face.

“Like how exactly?”

“Well, you know how they say the enemy of my enemy is my friend?”

Frank could see her nodding from the corner of his eye,

“I think we just became friends.”

* * *

The dining table was scattered with covertly taken photos of Marco Palazzo. In some of the photos he was on the phone, in others he was laughing with finely dressed men and women. Sylvia looked at each one carefully, not quite able to believe what she was seeing.

“All of these were taking in the last three months” Frank explained, watching the woman as she studied the photos.

“I can’t believe he has been alive this whole time” she muttered, shaking her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe they just lied to me and I fell for it.”

She looked up at Frank then, “tell me everything.”

“It’s hard to pinpoint where it began but the PD started pulling girls out of the East River. All of ‘em had class A drugs in their system, all of them were aged between 14 and 16, and all of them were sexually active. The police had nothing to go on but I got a tip that this piece of shit-” Frank tapped one of the photos on the table in front of him, “-was using trafficked girls to run coke up out of Mexico from the Colombians and straight into New York city. He also pimps them out to the city fatcats for extortionate prices, and then when they’re no longer useful they’re dumped in the river.”

Sylvia was just staring at him with an unreadable expression on her face. Frank felt as though she should be shocked but she wasn’t and that made him curious.

“About eight girls in total turned up in the East River before I guess some genius realised it wasn’t an actual river and then they started turning up in other bodies of water, just less often.”

“And that’s why you’re looking for Palazzo?”

“Yeah.”

“Understandable,” she replied, looking back down at the photos.

“So, Palazzo responsible for your father’s death, right?”

Sylvia returned his gaze at that.

“How did you-”

“-you mentioned it before and I filled in the blanks”

“Well you deduced correctly, Sherlock,” Sylvia looked back down at the photos. “So I’m guessing all those poor girls found in the river all had a brand burned onto their ankles, right? Like, an M with a spiral around it?”

“Yeah,” Frank replied. “How’d you know that?” Sylvia smiled at his question but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“I have the original one on my ankle. He was pretty proud when he came up with the idea of literally branding the people he owned.”

“What _happened_ to you?” Frank asked, appalled. Sylvia stared at Frank intently for a moment before looking at the table which separated them.  

“Well.." she paused, took a deep breath, and then continued, "I remember it like it happened just last week, to be honest. Dad was just laying in a puddle of his own blood and Marc walked in and just scooped me up and carried me out of the room. He kept telling me everything was okay even though it clearly fucking wasn’t. Even at that age I knew something was wrong, you know?”

Frank nodded. Sylvia examined his face for a moment as though judging whether to tell him more or not. She was distractedly running a finger backwards and forwards across the table in front of her. A nervous habit. Frank looked back up at her and she must have found a reason to because she continued with the story.

“He had a network of safe houses all over the city and wherever he was, I had to go. If he so much as suspected that someone had double crossed him or ratted on him he’d sit them in front of me and I’d get in their heads. But I figured out that every time I told the truth people got hurt. He’d tell me that the truth had strength but I guess I was about eight when I worked out that it only had strength for the person it benefited, which was always him. So I started lying… but he figured it out because he isn’t as stupid as he looks.”

“What’d he do?” Frank asked, and Sylvia looked at the photos for a moment and then back up at him.

“He didn’t do anything to me, but the guy I was supposed to be reading had gone to the police and was willing to testify against the whole operation but Marc got to him first,” she paused and took a deep, shaky breath.  

“When I sat down opposite him I realised that if he testified it might mean that the police would rescue me and the others being hurt so I told Marc that this guy hadn’t gone to the police… but he knew that he had. He’d just wanted me to work out how much he’d told them, not if he was a rat. So, to teach me a lesson, he made me watch as they hung him up by his feet and flayed him alive.”

There was an awful silence. Sylvia was looking at the wall behind Frank, replaying that memory in her head while Frank tried to comprehend what that would do to an eight-year-old kid.

“He never laid a finger on me." Her eyes found his again after a moment. "If anyone so much as spoke harshly to me Marc would fly off of the handle and attack them. He always wore these stupid gold knuckledusters and claimed they’d broken over a hundred jaws. But he didn’t need to threaten me with violence to make me behave. He just used the threat of violence against others to keep me obedient. So, when Fury told me that Marco had been killed in their rescue operation I believed him, but I guess now he was just trying to comfort a totally fucked up kid.”

Frank didn’t know what to say. There were no words that wouldn’t sound patronising or insincere.

“Will you help me get him?” he asked, instead.

“How exactly?”

“Well, it seems as though he sent his friend to find you so I’m guessing you’re one of his priorities right now.”

“You want to use me as a lure, right?” Frank nodded and Sylvia nodded in response. “Well, I guess I’m technically a sitting duck now anyway, so why not, right? Especially with The Punisher to watch my back.”

Frank scoffed at that. He guessed that Palazzo would send a bigger crew the next time to take Sylvia out and that they’d need to capture at least one of these guys to work out the whereabouts of Palazzo before making a move. Frank had no idea that it’d be much, much easier than that when the time came.


End file.
